Went this morning to a rally at the Almon St., Postal facility in Halifax to support the launch of a "support our post office" demand home mail delivery demo.
Photo Credit Toni MacAfee
A few things I learned: Canad Post lied when they said that only 30% of Canadians get home mail delivery. They "forgot" to include apartment buildings and rural mail delivery to mail boxes! Oops - Turns out 60%+ of Canadians get home mail delivery -- so most Canadians would be negatively impacted by a stop on all home mail delivery, which is the plan. Of course they are also raising the cost of a stamp to a dollar and getting rid of jobs.
Many people believe that this is just the continuing saga of a real plan to get rid of the Post Office altogether, and/or privatizing the service. If that happens how will the north, and remote regions of the country, be able to even get mail delivery. Why would Purolater or FedEx deliver to some place in the Arctic, or a back road in NS, where there is not enough of a population to recoup the costs? Too bad! they will say. It is hard to imagine - but imagine places in Canada with no ability to have something delivered? Not much available to buy locally but now you cannot order online either! It could happen just the same way that there are places in NS where there is no bus or train -- you have to have a vehicle or you cannot get there (anywhere) Every Canadian has a stake in this fight. The market is not cheaper or better when it comes to the delivery of non-profit public services. What we do for each other is not better done by a profit-making enterprise - they don't do it better or more efficiently -- it is done to maximize profit with, generally speaking, no look at the human cost.
In addition if this plan is put in place up to 8000 jobs will be lost -- Post Office jobs - good, living wage jobs, with benefits. Now we are consigning another group of individuals that contribute to the tax base, can have the occasional restaurant meal and buy a car etc, to fast food, precarious work and low pay. Right now they are shopping in your stores, eating in your restaurants and sending their kids to play on your hockey team. Without them we all suffer.
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And one more thing about the Post Office and the Harper Con's and P.O. management and their attempts to privatize etc. -- and that is that the report that suggests all these service eliminations are from a report by the Conference Board of Canada and Deepak Chopra (the CEO of Canada Post) is a Board member. So as the Nat'l Post puts it, even though the gov't and the Post Office deny that there is any conflict of interest:
___________________________________________________________________OTTAWA — Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra is a board member of the organization that highlighted the financial plight facing the Crown corporation and suggested eliminating door-to-door delivery as a way for it to save money.In announcing Wednesday a five-point restructuring plan that includes ending door-to-door residential mail delivery in urban areas, Canada Post repeatedly pointed to a Conference Board of Canada report released last spring that documented challenges facing the postal service. That same report included options such as eliminating door-to-door service for urban residential households and increasing postal prices as ways to cut costs and improve the bottom line — options the Crown corporation has now adopted.Chopra is a member of the board of directors of the Conference Board of Canada.
Also this morning 500 or so of our hard working brothers and sisters at the Chignecto Central School Board are on strike. CUPE 3890 members who are school bus drivers, bus mechanics, Maintenance/Inventory/Warehouse Clerks, Tradepersons, Safety Technicians, General Maintenance, Groundskeepers, custodians and labourers are now walking a picket line. I heard some parents on the radio (CBC) this morning speculating on whether they should keep their kids home until the strike ends, to force the Board to deal with this. Hey -- good idea! Pressure the Board!
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And on the west coast the a judge has ruled against the province in its fight with BC public school teachers over bargaining provisions. The ruling involves a move by the government to take away provisions involving class size and composition. The court has also ordered the government to pay the union damages of $2 million. Guessing that this will be appealed and on we go -- unions follow the rules and governments don't. Civil Disobedience is where its at -- but we need a LOT of people to come along!
On the BC Supreme Court Decision -- here is some of what it says from the JUDGEMENT found at: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/14/01/2014BCSC0121.htm
SummaryThe hearing before this Court follows on the Court’s declaration on April 13, 2011 that legislation interfering with teachers’ collective bargaining rights was unconstitutional as a breach of s. 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of association. The legislation at issue deleted collective agreement terms and prohibited collective bargaining having to do with a range of working conditions, many having to do with class size and composition and the number of supports provided in classes to students with special needs.The freedom of workers to associate has long been recognized internationally and in Canada as an important aspect of a fair and democratic society. Collective action by workers helps protect individuals from unfairness in one of the most fundamental aspects of their lives, their employment. Normally the result after legislation is determined by a court to be unconstitutional is that it is struck down. This is part of Canada’s democratic structure, which requires that governments must act legally, within the supreme law of the country, the Constitution.Here this result was suspended for twelve months to give the government time to address the repercussions of the decision. The government did not appeal.After the twelve months expired, the government enacted virtually identical legislation in Bill 22, with the duplicative provisions coming into force on April 14, 2012. The over-arching question, then, is whether there is something new that makes the new legislation constitutional when the previous legislation was not.. . . The Court concludes that there is no basis for distinguishing the new legislation from the previous findings of this Court. The new duplicative legislation substantially interferes with the s. 2(d) Charter rights of teachers, which protects their freedom to associate to make representations to their employer and have the employer consider them in good faith.As a result, the Court finds the duplicative legislation in Bill 22 to be unconstitutional, namely s. 8, part of s. 13, and s. 24, set out in Appendix A. The unconstitutional provisions that have not already expired, ss. 8 and 24, are struck down.When legislation is struck down as unconstitutional, it means it was never valid, from the date of its enactment. This means that the legislatively deleted terms in the teachers’ collective agreement have been restored retroactively and can also be the subject of future bargaining. . . .The Court has also concluded that it is appropriate and just to award damages against the government pursuant to s. 24(1) of the Charter. This is in order to provide an effective remedy in relation to the government’s unlawful action in extending the unconstitutional prohibitions on collective bargaining to the end of June 2013. The government must pay the BCTF damages of $2 million.
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